{"id":1236,"date":"2016-08-04T15:42:26","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T13:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2021-03-01T08:39:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T08:39:28","slug":"amts-cadet-series-star-trek-the-motion-picture-set-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.borkedcode.com\/wp2\/2016\/08\/04\/amts-cadet-series-star-trek-the-motion-picture-set-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"AMT\u2019s \u201cCadet Series\u201d \u2013 Star Trek: The Motion Picture Set \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Part 2, where I\u2019ll cover the decaling and painting of the AMT Cadet Series of Star Trek: The Motion Picture<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 For those of you just tuning in, take a few moments and have a look at what I put up on the kit itself and its assembly<\/a>, because there\u2019s a lot of good to be said for this kit\u2026and it\u2019s best to approach this from the beginning. \u00a0For those of you who already saw part 1, please accept my apologies for not getting this up sooner – life is a bit hectic, and I kept procrastinating. \u00a0However, regardless of which way you arrived, glad to have you and let\u2019s get on with the build and review!<\/p>\n

Decals<\/h2>\n

The decals for this kit, as I mentioned previously, are really pretty \u2013 extreme levels of detail, they got my anticipation up to some extreme levels.<\/p>\n

\"AMT<\/a>

On paper, they look beautiful, and I\u2019m really excited to get to working with them.<\/p><\/div>\n

And much like Star Trek V, my hopes got raised to unhappy levels.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all bad news here, let\u2019s get that straight \u2013 I\u2019ve developed a very definitive love-hate relationship with these decals.\u00a0 I am amazed at the detail and the prettiness.\u00a0 I am severely disappointed in the film material that AMT chose to use for them.<\/p>\n

\"Sadly,<\/a>

Sadly, real life rarely looks as good as things did on paper.<\/p><\/div>\n

Waterslides should be soft and flexible, and these are just way too stiff and brittle to be easy to work with.\u00a0 Based on the behavior of these decals, I\u2019d have to push the \u201cdifficulty level\u201d listed on the front of the kit from \u201c2\u201d to \u201c3+\u201d \u2013 basically at this point I consider every decal to be a separate part, and of particularly delicate nature.<\/p>\n

\"TEENY\"<\/a>Just so you know, some of these decals are tiny<\/em> \u2013 the kind of tiny one usually associates with photo-etch parts or nightmares of insects crawling into your ears\u2026.that\u2019s a regular-sized toothpick, by the way.<\/p>\n

Cutting the backing is easy, and they absorb water quick, so within 30-60 seconds even the biggest of them can be slid off without a hassle.<\/p>\n

Once off the backing, though, is where your trouble starts.<\/p>\n

If you breathe on these the wrong way, they rip.\u00a0 Once they\u2019re on the model, they don\u2019t conform to surfaces that aren\u2019t very flat.\u00a0 Both of these would be forgivable, because normally one could use solvents like Micro-Sol or Solvaset to soften them up and get them to lay flat.<\/p>\n

Except these decals don\u2019t respond to either Micro-Set or Solvaset.\u00a0 Gaaaarrrrr!<\/p>\n

The instructions recommend slicing the larger ones into more manageable sizes, but I suspect someone in marketing at AMT realized what a tragedy these were and tried to cover their butts this way.<\/p>\n

First, some how-tos\u2026and by the way, if you\u2019ve never done waterslides, then you might want to shelf this kit until you\u2019ve done one or two others and feel comfortable dealing with difficult models.<\/p>\n

Stuff You\u2019ll need to Apply Waterslide Decals<\/h3>\n

In case you\u2019re new to decals, here\u2019s what you\u2019ll need and\/or want:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A pan, bowl, or large mug with some clean <\/em>warm water in it \u2013 this is your \u201cbath\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. A large dish or plate with a paper towel on it \u2013 place your container from 1 on this and keep that paper towel damp<\/li>\n
  3. A pair of stainless-steel tweezers to hold the decals while they soak<\/li>\n
  4. A couple of soft paintbrushes (you\u2019ll use these to push decals around and lift them up for repositioning)<\/li>\n
  5. A few toothpicks\/cocktail sticks (because the paintbrushes in 2 are likely to be too big for a few of these decals)<\/li>\n
  6. A decal-setting solution like the Micro-Scale set (Micro-Set and Micro-Sol), Solvaset, or similar<\/li>\n
  7. (optional) a spritz-bottle with some clean or distilled water<\/li>\n
  8. \u2026and specifically for this kit, you\u2019re going to need canopy glue, or perhaps some white school glue watered down, and a very sharp hobby razor (preferably brand new blade).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How to Apply Waterslide Decals<\/h3>\n

    The process is as follows \u2013 cut the decal you want free, grip it by the paper backing with the tweezers (make sure not to grip over the decal itself), and immerse the decal in the water tub from (1), above.\u00a0 If it\u2019s large, the paper will \u201croll up\u201d around your tweezers.\u00a0 It\u2019s okay, this is normal.<\/p>\n

    While the decal is soaking, sprinkle a little water on the surface of the model (or spray with the bottle from (7)).\u00a0 Follow the instructions for your decal setting solution (some have you apply to the model before the decal, some have you do it afterwards, some both).<\/p>\n

    \"Wet\"<\/a>

    Don\u2019t be bashful about getting your model wet.\u00a0 You want the decal to \u201cswim\u201d into place with no bubbles underneath.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Once the decal is about ready the paper will \u201cunroll\u201d a bit (small ones won\u2019t have rolled up, so ignore this for those).\u00a0 Take them out of the water and shake off the excess, or tap it lightly on the paper towel to draw away the extra water.<\/p>\n

    Test the \u2018slide\u2019 of the decal with a finger by gently giving it a tiny push and see if it moves easily on the paper.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t, back in the bath with it for another 15-30 sec, then try again.<\/p>\n

    Oh, if it comes off in the bath, just fish it out on the paper backing, it\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n

    Slide the decal off the backing and onto the model, where it should \u201cfloat\u201d freely on the already-wet surface.\u00a0 Once it\u2019s in the right place, tear off a piece of your paper towel and use it to wick away excess fluid.\u00a0 As the fluid gets pulled away the decal will lock itself in place.\u00a0 If it locks in the wrong place, you can always put some more water back down on it and under it, which should loosen it up and let you move it a bit to get it back into position.<\/p>\n

    \"Get<\/a>

    Slide it around until it\u2019s in the right spot, then wick away the extra water and let it dry.<\/p><\/div>\n

    After it\u2019s in the right place and locked, apply the last of your solvents according to their instructions, and let the model dry for a few hours, preferably overnight.\u00a0 After that, use a clear varnish or laquer (I use rattle-cans for this, but if you prefer an airbrush that\u2019s perfectly fine too) to seal the model and protect the decals.<\/p>\n

    And now, back to the kit\u2026<\/h2>\n

    Under normal circumstances, I apply the decals for a model after<\/em> painting it, but in this case, the paint for the Federation ships was purely detail work, so I did them decals-first.\u00a0 The Klingon I did as paint first like traditional models.<\/p>\n

    Since Reliant <\/em>and Enterprise<\/em> are very similar to one another on the decal front, let\u2019s cover those together.<\/p>\n

    The big saucer decals were probably among the easiest to apply, as the saucer sections are almost flat \u2013 but due to the decals\u2019 brittleness and stiff nature, you can still get rips and you\u2019re likely to get a lot of \u2018silvering\u2019 in the applied decals. You\u2019ll also get some overhang, and because of the stiffness of the decal material this overhang won\u2019t lay flat at all.\u00a0 Just leave it there until it dries, and then use your hobby knife, dragging the blade backwards along the model edge (if you tried to carve it away you\u2019d end up with a bunch of little cuts along the saucer \u2013 doing the backwards drag will strip away the overhang and not damage the model surface).<\/p>\n

    \"Overhang<\/a>

    Overhang on the saucer – let it dry then come back and scrape it off.<\/p><\/div>\n

    \"Quite<\/a>

    Quite a few places had this overhang problem, but the same tactic worked for them all.<\/p><\/div>\n

    I\u2019d ask that if anyone out there has found a decal solvent that works on these, I\u2019d appreciate it if you got word to me about what you used.<\/p>\n

    I found it best to leave a section of the lower hull unapplied to give me a gripping place (because if I grabbed a spot where decals had been recently applied, I\u2019d likely shred them or just pull them off with my fingers), and gave the decals a day or so before putting decals on the empty spots.\u00a0 In the case of Enterprise<\/em>, that was the engineering hull, while Reliant\u2019s<\/em> engines made perfect handles.<\/p>\n

    Once the big plates were on, I went to the smaller detail decals \u2013 and this was where it paid off that I\u2019d done a big version of both ships before, so I knew where most of the details belonged.\u00a0 For those of you who haven\u2019t had such experience, this is where the box from the kit comes in very helpful.<\/p>\n

    \"Not<\/a>

    Not terribly helpful, those little decal callouts.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The instructions, unfortunately, are not very helpful at all.\u00a0 You get an idea of which decals go onto what part of the model, but they don\u2019t point to specifically where they belong.\u00a0 The film material becomes a real problem here, now, because most of the parts the small ones go on are curved and the small ones just sit flat on them rather than conforming.<\/p>\n

    \"It\u2019s<\/a>

    It\u2019s the little things in life that really irritate you sometimes.<\/p><\/div>\n

    This is where a few strategic cuts with the hobby knife (don\u2019t drag the point, but rather position the knife on the decal and \u201croll\u201d the blade over it if you can) can release the tension \/ pressure on the decal.\u00a0 If that\u2019s not a suitable method, you will have to resort to a different method \u2013 in my case, I used canopy glue.\u00a0 The glue made the inner surface of the decal \u2018tacky\u2019 and when dry it would be clear as glass.<\/p>\n

    Even being careful like this, rips will still happen\u2026and unfortunately, some of these decals are so small that a rip becomes almost impossible to repair.<\/p>\n

    \"Like<\/a>

    Like the shuttle bay on the Reliant. Grr. By the way, that\u2019s the end of a toothpick in the shot for scale \u2013 it\u2019s closer to the camera than the model is.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The engine nacelle decals were also particularly challenging, because they were made to \u201cwrap\u201d the nacelles up.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this material is not soft enough to \u201cwrap\u201d anything, and rather prefers to stand out straight.\u00a0 Again, I applied canopy glue to the interior of them and then pressed them down onto the surface until it held fast.<\/p>\n

    \"I<\/a>

    I think I heard one of the model gremlins mutter \u201cWrap this!\u201d right about here.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Fig 42 These little sections were harder to deal with than the large ones \u2013 larger ones held themselves in place with glue more easily, these little buggers kept popping up.<\/p>\n

    \"These<\/a>

    These little sections were harder to deal with than the large ones \u2013 larger ones held themselves in place with glue more easily, these little buggers kept popping up.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The Klingon\u2019s decals were almost all very small and easy to apply, with the exception of the large belly insignia and the forward torpedo launcher decoration \u2013 these are going onto very curved surfaces, and they don\u2019t settle flat.\u00a0 In both cases, some canopy glue convinced the edges to settle and hold into place.<\/p>\n

    This ends the most challenging aspect of this kit\u2026and a challenge it certainly was.\u00a0 In spite of these issues, once they\u2019re done the models look really nice.\u00a0 I usually judge this from the perspective of a 1-meter distance view, and at a meter, most of the detail can be seen, but not entirely resolved.\u00a0 Because of this, some of the ripping fades away and the slight angular deficiencies also don\u2019t appear.<\/p>\n

    \"The<\/a>

    The belly insignia always looked cool to me.\u00a0 A little glue on this one made sure it wasn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p><\/div>\n

    \"At<\/a>

    At one meter it\u2019s hard to make out the fault, but the silvering is quite obvious when you look close up. Decal solvent products are supposed to fix this, but this material just ignored every attempt I made.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Painting<\/h2>\n

    Painting on the Federation ships was quite simple \u2013 a bit of duck-egg blue at the front of the engine nacelles, flat black slits for their \u201cbussard collectors\u201d also at the front of the nacelles.\u00a0 Touches of clear red and clear green on the sides of the saucers for navigation lights (red right, green left).\u00a0 Reliant<\/em> also required some intermediate blue for the faces of its weapons modules, and some medium gray for the engineering trenches on top of the hull and the semi-triangular rear section beneath the hull (the instructions are pretty clear on these, at least).<\/p>\n

    \"Enterprise<\/a>

    Enterprise looking ready to launch here.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The forward inboard and outboard \u2018rounded\u2019 sections of the intercoolers on the engine nacelles also got a dose of paint \u2013 for Enterprise<\/em> I used flat black (which is a correction to the instructions, which wrongly say copper here), and copper for Reliant <\/em>(which is correct in the instructions).\u00a0 Touch ups were done with flat white, even over the decals, since tiny bits of white there are already expected.\u00a0 I also used a dab of crystal clear blue where the warp crystal mounts appear (on top of the nacelles, just above the beginnings of the intercoolers).<\/p>\n

    \"Reliant<\/a>

    Reliant is hot on her tail.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The Klingon was more interesting to paint.\u00a0 To start with, I need to post a correction of myself here:<\/p>\n

    In part 1 of this review, I stated \u201cThe Amar from TMP and Kronos 1 from ST6 both were more of a metallic grey on-screen\u201d \u2013 that was flatly wrong.\u00a0 I went back and reviewed the Klingon scene from TMP and The Undiscovered Country\u2026in TMP, the Klingons are clearly a dark green with black and almost dusty-looking finish.\u00a0 Kronos<\/em> in TUC was a lighter grey with brownish and possibly a very faint hint of green (and I blame this for the contamination of my memory of TMP J).<\/p>\n

    \"Klingon<\/a>

    I stand corrected.\u00a0 They were quite green in TMP.<\/p><\/div>\n

    \"Also<\/a>

    Also note the \u201cdusty\u201d look of the ship here \u2013 they were very well weathered.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Since this is a TMP Klingon, I went back and \u2018greened it up\u2019.\u00a0 I re-sprayed the hull with a lighter green (what you use won\u2019t matter in the details, so long as it\u2019s a very light green with a little more brown than yellow you\u2019re fine).\u00a0 I then highlighted the rear hull\u2019s raised sections with olive drab (same stuff I use for allied armor WW2 models) by hand with a very fine brush, using the kit instructions as a general guideline of where to apply the darker color.\u00a0 I also used it on random partial bits of the \u2018head\u2019.\u00a0 After the olive, I used crystal clear green to highlight a very few spaces on top of the rear hull, the top \u2018nubs\u2019 along the neck of the ship, the cooling grids on the engineering rear hull, the cooling grids above the engine nacelles on each wing, and the collector grids on the leading edges of the wings.<\/p>\n

    Some dark grey then went into the grid at the bottom base of the neck, and the same color applied to the disruptor \u2018bumps\u2019 (there are two under the bridge housing on the head, two on the underside of the forward corners of the wings, and two just beneath the engineering section on top of the rear of the hull).\u00a0 A lighter grey went onto the forward grid ahead of the engineering section (top of the hull just behind the neck), leaving the two squarish raised portions in the original hull color.\u00a0 Next, a dab of crystal clear red went where the upper and lower strobes on the neck are, and I filled in the forward impulse manifold (the part that you see glowing red), and a little line of it for the bridge windows.<\/p>\n

    After these were done, the ship looked particularly garish and ugly \u2013 but I was expecting that.\u00a0 To blend the whole thing together I prepped a wash using 15 parts Vallejo dark grey wash, 10 parts water, three parts US Olive Drab, seven parts Gunship Green, and three parts crystal clear green.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t concoct this recipe ahead of mixing it, by the way, that\u2019s just what I ended up using.\u00a0 The idea was to make a nice wash that was a deep muddy green, and that mix is how I achieved it.<\/p>\n

    You can probably do it with a different mix.\u00a0 I hit the entire model with this mix, and that blended all the colors in very well \u2013 took away the stark contrast and gave the ship a really nice \u201cused\u201d look.\u00a0 I always felt Klingons weren\u2019t afraid to dig in and fight, and their ships should show the look of that attitude.<\/p>\n

    \"Klingon,<\/a>

    By darkening up the light base color of the hull with a common wash, all the heavier colors come together and blend better.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Finally, I used some streaking grime enamel to put some weathering marks on the hull and head, streaking back from the leading edges.\u00a0 For those who haven\u2019t used this sort of thing, it goes on as brownish lines where you want the \u201cstreaks\u201d to be, and then with a clean brush dipped in thinner you lift away most of the streak, leaving behind a perceptible \u2018streak\u2019 of color that doesn\u2019t overwhelm the paint scheme beneath it.<\/p>\n

    Once the paint was on, the decals followed, and it was all set!<\/p>\n

    \"Klingon<\/a>

    The decals work really well on this color base \u2013 note the Klingon text is hard to see when it\u2019s on paper, but is very clear on the model.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Basing<\/p>\n

    This kit comes with no base for any of these models, which I think is something of a mistake.\u00a0 AMT didn\u2019t have to go out on any big limbs to throw in a few simple bases for the ships, but they omitted them in the end.\u00a0 So you, the builder, get to decide how to mount them.\u00a0 The might make a good hanging display with some 2lb-test fishing line or magnet wire.<\/p>\n

    \"No<\/a>

    No bases, and though that\u2019s an omission that the factory should have avoided, it\u2019s easy enough to come up with some solutions.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Personally, I\u2019m going to pick up some cheap black picture frames from Ikea or somewhere and mount these on 2mm clear acrylic rods.\u00a0 I\u2019ll print some background scenes from the films and perhaps backlight the pictures with a 9V battery and an LED, and have the ships extended \u201cout of the picture\u201d mounted on the acrylic rods.<\/p>\n

    \"And<\/a>

    And my Klingon will be perpetually chased by V\u2019Ger\u2019s big plasma ball.<\/p><\/div>\n

    In Summary<\/h2>\n

    Now that all three models in the kit are done, I have to say that they came out looking really, really good.\u00a0 I was very concerned with the quality of the decals when I started applying them, that they would be ruinous to the finish of the models, but the mistakes made at the factory were fixable, if not easily so.\u00a0 Compared to the time consumed in assembly \/ gluing \/ putty \/ primer, which was about 90 minutes, the decal work took about seven hours split into two sessions.\u00a0 Painting was about another hour.<\/p>\n

    \"All<\/a>

    About ten hours of fun putting this all together, and a really nice outcome!\u00a0 I\u2019m very much looking forward to putting these on frames.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Would I buy this kit, knowing what I know now?\u00a0 Yep, I think so.\u00a0 My daughter already asked me if she could have Reliant<\/em> when I\u2019m done, so I\u2019d say it made an impression, and when I\u2019m done with the picture-frame basing they\u2019ll look really nice hanging on a wall (which is a nice change from a model kit that would otherwise have taken up more shelf-space).\u00a0 They\u2019d also make really nice game pieces if you play Firestorm Armada or Star Fleet Battles, or some other tabletop space game.<\/p>\n

    Would I give this kit to a kid to build?\u00a0 Probably not, since the kid would be weeping after the decals fell apart.\u00a0 I\u2019d probably lean more towards the 1:600 Enterprise or Klingon D-7.\u00a0 Pricing on those is similar to this, and those kits are more forgiving of error and mishandling.\u00a0 Fortunately, given the subject matter for this kit is almost forty years old (yeah, I know, don\u2019t we feel freaking ancient now?), I don\u2019t imagine children are going to be lining up and asking for this for Christmas.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s finish this with a numeric scale judgment on how this kit worked out, and give it a judgment based on the combined aspect score.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give each aspect a 1-10 (10 being best):<\/p>\n

    INSTRUCTIONS (clearly written, easy to follow?):\u00a0 7<\/p>\n

    I would have given this an 8 or 9, but the instructions on the small decals were very insufficient, and the manufacturer\u2019s claim that this was a snap-together kit on the box front was, I think misleading.<\/p>\n

    PARTS FIT AND ASSEMBLY (Were the parts cast well?\u00a0 Not a ton of flash?\u00a0 Not so many gaps?):\u00a0 9<\/p>\n

    Parts in this kit were generally very well fitted, there was almost no flash to deal with, and what gaps did exist were easily dealt with.<\/p>\n

    DECALS or ORNAMENTATION (What decals were in the box?\u00a0 Were they complete for finish of the model?\u00a0 Did they fit well and were they easy to work with?):\u00a0 7<\/p>\n

    For all of my bitching about the material, they were very complete, and extremely well designed.\u00a0 The material they were made of, however, knocked the score to seven from what would have been a solid TEN.\u00a0 AMT, take note of that.<\/p>\n

    So\u2026a total score of 23 out of 30, not bad!\u00a0 Average score is 7.66 out of 10, which is respectable, and I\u2019d say definitely worth the cash.<\/p>\n

    Thanks for tuning in \u2013 and I\u2019m looking forward to hearing your experiences in constructing these three little gems.\u00a0 Send your comments in!<\/p>\n

    Once again I’d like to extend my thanks to Models4Hobby <\/a>for providing the kit that was the subject of this build – check them out on Facebook too<\/a>, they’re always posting updates!<\/p>\n

    Update<\/h2>\n

    I mounted the Klingon on an inexpensive 5×7 picture frame today – she looks really good, but I’ll have to re-update the photo once I get some sunlight tomorrow. \u00a0Decided to forgo the lighting, this works just fine. \u00a0Here’s what I did:<\/p>\n